Joe Kelly not happy with how MLB punished Aroldis Chapman

Once Joe Kelly is activated off the Injured List, he’ll have to serve his five-game suspension from when he threw a wild pitch. Initially he was suspended eight games, but he got it reduced to five.

Last week, the MLB gave Aroldis Chapman a three-game suspension for nearly hitting a Tampa Bay player in the head with a 100+ mph fastball. So to summarize that, Chapman gets three for almost hitting a player in the head and Kelly got eight for a pitch that didn’t come close to hitting anyone.

It’s fishy, and Kelly knows that.

“It definitely looks kind of fishy,” Kelly said to reporters via Zoom over the weekend. “I obviously knew that he was a person again and with the language they’re using at me — it was always that I was a repeat offender. I already had one strike on my record and Chapman had the same exact thing.”

Kelly wasn’t done, as he went on to add this.

“But obviously I’ve probably said a little bit more words than Chapman said. I don’t think the words that I used to the people who make these decisions were very, very nice when the appeal process went down behind closed doors. So I ruffled some feathers. It just shows that their feelings get hurt, just like anyone else’s feelings get hurt. So, it is what it is. I would still like to know what they think, you know, what the difference is. And if it’s not the same, what’s the standard for it? Is it three games for the suspension and then five games for making a face or supposedly making the other team leave benches? That’s a lot of games for that. They made a decision and that’s what it is.”